Shadows and Streetlights
by Skybluebirdy
Summary: "There is a matter in Amsterdam I believe Mr. Stark would like taken care of, if you truly wish to continue working." "Are you suggesting we team up, Vis?" "I believe I am." Taking place nearly a year after the events of Civil War, Vision and Wanda team up to take down a splinter Hydra cell. ScarletVision fic that's primarily fluff, with some angst towards the end, also snuggles.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'm just shamelessly borrowing these characters because they need a break for once.**

Also, this is my first story posted on this site, so we'll see how that goes. Enjoy! =)

* * *

Wanda had just finished changing out of her "mission clothes," today just an overlarge jacket, jeans, and a baseball cap to blend in with the crowds for a simple reconnaissance op. It seemed they only ever had the one disguise, but it served well enough that she couldn't rib Steve too much over it. Wearing something a bit more comfortable to sleep in, she opened the bathroom door and stepped into her hotel room.

The room was not as she had left it. The window was open several inches, letting in the drizzly, cool night air. It was not unpleasant, and while she had fully intended to open it herself in a few moments, she was not the one that had done so. Fully alert now, she scanned the rest of the room, but saw no one. Sensing a slight movement by the door, she whirled, but instead of confronting a would-be spy, and subsequently hurling them through several layers of plaster walls, she found herself instead greeted with the familiar red-silver tones of…

"Vision," she gasped, confusion and surprise turning the name more to a startled exclamation than a greeting, "What are you doing here?"

"Forgive me, I did not mean to upset you. I was flying over Antwerp on an errand for Mr. Stark when I was alerted to certain facial recognition matches in the area. It was not difficult to track your proceedings after that."

"So you were spying on me."

"I—That is not what I intended. I only meant that—"

She smiled as he fumbled to fix his words, and cut him off with a hug. She knew what he meant. "I missed you too."

It had been nearly three months since they had last seen each other. They had hoped to meet again a month after their last encounter, but the world had been even more in peril than usual, it had seemed.

"I meant to call, but I didn't think you could make it." she said, her voice slightly muffled, neither moving to pull back.

Finally though, it was Vision that gently disengaged and gazed down at her. "I have a little time." was all he said. It was enough.

* * *

They were each enjoying the other's presence, Wanda curled up next to Vision, one arm wrapped around his waist, while he softly stroked her hair. It was late, but neither seemed inclined to sleep. Not that Vision seemed to need much rest on a daily basis anyway. And sleep would bring an end to this, hours passing unobserved and unnoticed.

"Will you leave tomorrow?" she mumbled, eyelids heavy even as she stubbornly kept them open.

His fingers stilled for a spell, before lightly resuming their absent path through her tousled hair. He seemed to be considering his words with particular care, and when he spoke it sounded as if he was trying each one in his mouth, testing to see if they fit, "I completed my task for Mr. Stark. He should be able to proceed with the information I obtained, and I believe I have earned a considerable number of days off over recent developments."

"Vis, if Stark needs you, you need to go."

"Do not misunderstand. I will not shirk my duties, but Mr. Stark has the situation well in hand, I am sure. He has also mentioned on several occasions that I might benefit from _time off_."

She sighed and shifted slightly, feeling a twinge of guilt, "You don't need to spend your time off here, Vis. I'm sure the world needs you more."

"On the contrary, I cannot think of a better place to spend it."

Wanda felt her cheeks warm, with affection and embarrassment both. He didn't seem to notice. Sometimes she wondered if he didn't understand the implication of his words, or if he was just unaffected by it.

"Must you leave tomorrow, Wanda?" he queried in turn.

"I don't know." she answered honestly, "Steve has us moving every day to reduce risks. Not that it will stop anyone that's determined." She smiled at him briefly, before it faded like the people out on the rain-slicked city streets into the night, and she continued, "I might be able to put it off a little while. We could walk around the city tomorrow."

"Do you have a pressing need to go somewhere specific?"

"No. Just somewhere populated. Somewhere to blend in. We'll probably lay low until something big comes up. Draws too much attention otherwise."

"Well then, Wanda… what if I were to accompany you?"

"What?"

"There is a matter in Amsterdam I believe Mr. Stark would like taken care of, if you truly wish to continue working. I am sure you and I would be more than up to the task, and the city itself is quite large enough to conceal two strangers for a time."

She buried her face in his shirt, smiling a little as she asked, "Are you suggesting we team up, Vis?"

"I believe I am." She could hear the smile and the slight chuckle in his voice without having to look up.

"What would we be doing?"

"Cleaning out a variety of unsavory individuals and reacquiring the technology they possess, I believe."

"No one I know, I hope." she teased.

"It is quite possible. They are Hydra agents."

She stiffened, memories and nightmares dominating her mind, drowning her thoughts.

"—Wanda?"

The voice snapped her out of her dark ruminations, and she looked up to find Vision staring down at her worriedly.

She licked her lips and laughed shakily, but there was no humor in it. "Sorry, bad memories." She didn't have to say anything else. He didn't fully understand, but she didn't expect him to. There was no way for anyone _to_ understand that hadn't lived through it, but he could see how much it affected her.

He still seemed concerned, fingers unnecessarily brushing nonexistent strands of stray hair from her face. She curled into his side, arms wrapping around him as she tucked her head into his chest, both giving and receiving silent comfort. His own arms folding protectively around her, he pulled her even closer, resting his head tentatively upon hers. She did not pull back, enjoying the consoling gesture, and ignoring, for the moment, the twinge of awkward uncertainty that usually kept her from getting this close.

As moments passed in silence, Wanda finally chased away the spectres of the past enough to focus on their abandoned conversation, and when she spoke, her voice was steely, a hint of cold fire tinging the words like the magic that danced across her fingertips, "Nothing would make me happier than bringing them down."

"You do not have to accompany me." Vision prompted gently.

"No, I… want to. It feels good to do something useful. And I do, want to go with you, I mean."

She could feel him smile at that, small and warm, and oh so genuine. "Then it is settled. Tomorrow we will go to Amsterdam. But for now," he hesitantly pressed the lightest of kisses onto the top of her head, "try to sleep, Wanda. I expect we will have our work cut out for us in the morning."

The gesture would ordinarily have made her blush or sent that quiver of nervous energy running through her again, but she was so tired that she only barely registered it, much less reacted to it. Instead, she merely shifted her position ever so slightly and drifted off to sleep, Vision falling into a light rest beside her in turn. The storm outside rumbled, hovering above the sleeping city and covering it in a quiet blanket of rain as it softly, gradually eased them into slumber.


	2. Chapter 2

They exited the train with the other passengers, allowing the crowd to consume them as they moved with the heaviest flow of traffic. It was surprising what people would or, more importantly, _wouldn't_ notice when in the midst of a sea of others. Wanda kept a tight hold on Vision's hand as they were pulled along through and out of the station. As they were borne farther from the station, the crowd thinned more and more, and she relaxed her grip, but did not let go.

The place they were headed to was a former government testing laboratory on the outerbelt of the city. It would have been easier and faster to simply hail a taxi, but the idea was to avoid as much visibility as possible to negate any chance of recognition. They had risen early to catch the 6:45 to Amsterdam, and it was only a little past nine now, but clouds hung low in the sky, and the sun was hidden behind the threat of more rain. It was not long then before the first cold drops of rain began to fall.

They walked in relative silence, only occasionally making a passing remark or altering their intended path. While it was unlikely that Hydra had any scouts this far out, or indeed, even looking for them, it would not do for them to draw undue attention to themselves. Ideally, this mission would involve as little combat as possible. Of course, that was assuming flawless conditions and some modicum of stealth and surprise. So, they continued the rest of the trip as quietly and inconspicuously as they could.

As they neared the building, Vision guided them from the road and into a nearby alleyway. There were no lights coming from the building. It was silent and soaked as they were, and Wanda would have thought it deserted if she did not spy several guards outside its main and side entrances mere seconds later. Instead of knocking them all out, which would most certainly alert anyone inside of their presence eventually, Vision slipped through the wall of the alley and materialized behind the guard on the furthest side of the building, which was mostly out of view from all but the one man on guard there.

He held the man, one hand over the guard's mouth, and the other pinning his arms to his sides. The unwitting guard had only a second to comprehend the situation, not even enough time to consider retaliating or shouting for help beyond an initial, instinctual yelp, before Wanda was beside him with a hand to either side of his head. There was a brief flash of crimson and the man slumped.

They left him on the ground in a position that would make it appear he had simply fallen asleep at his post, which, in a way, he had, and turned their attentions to the locked door before them while the guard snored. It was unlikely he would recall the brief struggle when he awoke, and they intended to be in and out before that happened in any case.

They looked at each other, and Wanda gestured at the door with a little smirk and an "After you." The door was no more obstacle for Vision than the alley wall had been, and he phased through it before she could even finish blinking.

She waited for the door to pop open, but instead Vision reappeared a handful of seconds later, the door still firmly shut. "What is it?" she asked.

"I believe the door uses some form of bio-encryption technology to access the controls, either coming in or going out."

She sighed. "The old-fashioned way it is then."

Wanda concentrated on the numerous locks that secured the door to its housing, and felt a rush of power course out of her fingertips to surround the mechanisms. With a flick of her wrist, the bindings snapped free of their berths, and the metal groaned in protest as every bolt was crushed down to the size of a dime. It was sloppy, and noisier than they could really afford, but it couldn't be helped now. Haste would have to serve where silence could not.

With nothing to stop its progress, she pushed the door open and they moved into the compound, closing the door behind them and securing it as best as they could. It would not lock properly again, but so long as no one tried to use it, there was little chance of discovery.

As they moved through the building, they encountered surprisingly few guards. Those that they did find were fairly easy to disable. Most of them would live, though admittedly with rather nasty headaches and a broken bone or two. The security cameras were far more troublesome. They had no choice but to take them out indiscriminately as they encountered them, and this they did with little issue, but both knew that they were leaving a rather predictable and easily traceable trail through the facility. The lack of further reinforcements did not bode well.

"Where are they hiding?" Wanda muttered as they cleared yet another deserted lab.

"It is possible that they have decided to run rather than hold the base." Vision offered mildly.

She scoffed, "When do we ever get that lucky?"

"Well, it is also entirely possible that we are walking into a trap." he said, sparing her a brief smile before frying another security camera above the door.

"What are we looking for, Vision?"

"Mr. Stark did not have specific information regarding that, unfortunately. As far as I know, this site is believed to be a weapons development facility."

She looked around at yet another empty lab. "Odd that we haven't seen any equipment yet. Are they chemical-based?"

Vision paused to glance about the deserted lab as well, taking in everything from the dusty rows of workbenches to the blank board on the far wall. "I do not know. However, even a chemical weapon would require base elements. These don't resemble any development labs I have seen. They almost look like…"

"Like classrooms." she finished. She turned her attention back to the next doorway, physically shaking her head a little as if to banish the thoughts and the ideas it offered about the rooms. "Come on. Let's find someone who can answer our questions."

The unsettling lack of personnel or equipment continued as they penetrated deeper into the compound. They were nearing its heart, already on the second sub-floor and quickly nearing the center of the building plans. The prickle of unease grew as Wanda glanced into room after deserted room. Not all of them had desks. Others were filled with bunks surrounded by medical stations, barred windows, and somehow even more secure locks and doors guarding them. Still another resembled a communal feeding area, but crawling with security cameras and containment systems.

"Were these for their own people?" she fingered the restraining straps on one of the beds they came across.

"I cannot begin to guess at what this is all for with the limited information we have access to. It is possible they do not trust their people any more than we do. But…"

They stopped, a double-wide hall splitting the space between the previous room and a large rectangular room that encompassed all they could see of the rest of this floor before them. There was only the one door that Wanda could see, and they each wordlessly took up positions on either side of it.

"Ready?" he mouthed.

She nodded, and, channeling all her nerves and the feverish thrumming of her heart, letting them amplify her already formidable powers, Wanda wrenched the door free of its hinges and sent it hurtling into the room.

Chaos erupted. She was nearly deafened by the cacophony of gunfire from all angles of the room spraying into the hallway, mostly harmlessly. It was instinctive, blind firing. Several projectiles ricocheted off the back wall or the ceiling and floor. Vision took one to his upper back, but the bullet just flattened and dropped to the ground, leaving only a little nick that glistened with a faint glow.

The next one passed straight through him, as unimpeded as it had been through the air.

Wanda deflected the few bullets that strayed too close to her own position, and sent most of them back at the assailants that had fired them.

"I count twelve." Vision said, voice barely audible over the gunfire.

"Fourteen! Looks like you were right about this being a trap." she called back, lifting one of the Hydra soldiers and shoving him into a handful of his allies.

There was a faint blur, barely perceptible in the whirl of action, and suddenly Wanda was slammed into the floor. Her surprise quickly faded into the nauseating sense of disorientation, and she cried out, sharp pain shooting through her just as quickly. She just caught the barest hint of another blur, and then there was another pang as someone roughly twisted her arms behind her back.

She heard more than saw more commotion just out of her reach, and then her arms were free once more. Her rescuer, who unsurprisingly turned out to be Vision, dragged her out of the immediate firefight and propped her up against the nearby wall, drawing the incoming fire away before returning to the fray.

Struggling, dizzily climbing to her feet, Wanda spied another flicker of motion and Vision went flying into the ceiling, his reflexes not quite fast enough to phase fully and prevent the bone-shattering impact.

The maddening flicker resolved for the briefest moment into the vague outline of a man before speeding off back into the main room once more. Vision disentangled himself from the ruined steel rafters and warily moved to engage with the other Hydra agents.

The speedster went after him again, but this time Wanda was prepared. She caught him in a web of crimson energy, struggling to hold him as he fought to break free. Vision turned his attacks on the enhanced instead, deftly incapacitating him while Wanda held him in place.

Once he was definitely unconscious, she tossed him, perhaps a little too enthusiastically than strictly necessary, to the side, and focused on the remaining soldiers. They were organized and obviously well-trained, but they weren't any match for two highly powered opponents that already knew their organization's tactics and were well-used to dealing with them.

Within a few short but intense minutes, all the Hydra personnel were either out cold or dead. Ideally, if they had gone undetected, Wanda and Vision would have infiltrated this main control room, dispersed an incapacitating agent throughout the base, and had Stark call in a cleanup squad to sort out the mess later without any casualties. But these weren't ideal conditions.

They set about removing or destroying all of the guns and side arms so none of the soldiers would get any ideas if they woke up before the cleanup squad could process them. After dealing with all of the agents' weapons, they moved to examine the lone enhanced individual from the firefight.

He was still propped against a wall where they had left him. They had bound his legs and cuffed his wrists together just in case, but he was only just now beginning to stir.

He looked up at them fearfully, blue-grey eyes glinting in the fluorescent lighting. He was short, thin as a rake, hollow cheeks puckered over his blunt features, and so pale he looked sickly. Nothing at all like—

The man unexpectedly blurted, "Please, I didn't tell them anything."

"Didn't tell who anything?" Vision asked, glancing at Wanda, whose attention was elsewhere, on the brother this man definitely did not resemble, but who he couldn't help but remind her of.

The speedster was frantic now. "I didn't, I wouldn't tell—"

There was a distinct whine, as of high-powered electrical cables, the muffled _bang_ of a contained explosion, and the man collapsed.

A crimson stain slowly spread across the wall behind him, the blood trickling down to pool around his slumped and battered frame.

She didn't remember Vision leading her away.

She couldn't recall anything he said.

She was vaguely aware that the wetness staining her cheeks was of her own making, but she couldn't recollect crying, nor how long she sat there.

What she did remember, with only hazy certainty, was a familiar face, with the same blue-grey eyes as the man here; another speedster, taller, stronger, with laughter on his lips and bullets through his heart, lying in his own blood.

She couldn't shake the images, couldn't stop events from unfolding, over and over.

She couldn't stop seeing him, again and again, as he fell.

Each iteration differed slightly, but all ended the same: with his body lying still and broken on the bloodied earth.

She couldn't even reach him, couldn't stem the bleeding. Sick, numb, she sat there, helpless, hoping, waiting for it to end.

There was no way for her to know how much time passed like that, but it felt like lifetimes. Eventually, she blinked away the fog, the awful images lingering, but no longer drowning and dominating her view. As she unsteadily regained her bearings, Wanda noticed vaguely that she was on the floor once more, though in a different room. From the look of it all, she was still somewhere in the Hydra complex.

Forcibly dragging her gaze across the room, she spied Vision off to one side, examining some sort of data system. Closing out of the terminal, he turned and made his way back to her, his features concerned and troubled both.

There was a pause where he seemed ready to say something, but stopped before he had finished opening his mouth. Taking another moment, he gently explained, "I retrieved all the information I could on Hydra's operations here, and forwarded it and all relevant details to Mr. Stark. There is a cleanup detail already on their way, and we may leave whenever you are ready. Can you stand?"

She nodded, and he helped her to her feet. As he moved to leave the room, however, she asked, "What were they working on?" Her voice was still a little shaky, hoarse, and she loathed the way it cracked on the last word.

He hesitated again, but as he met her gaze—tired, but determined—he walked back to the console on the wall and began to sort through the log entries. "Mr. Stark was correct: this was a weapon development facility. But it wasn't for traditional or chemical arms as we suspected."

"What were they doing?" she asked again, a faint, sickening feeling beginning to creep through her.

"You remember the rooms we passed—classrooms, I believe you compared several of them to?"

She nodded, curious as he pulled up the log he was looking for.

"Those, as well as the other labs we saw, were for them." he pointed to the screen, where a multitude of personnel files were displayed, as well as one of the status reports from the labs.

 _Experiment 243 shows promising results. Inconsistent adaptivity in the individuals, but the only surviving subjects, #8 and 10, demonstrated nascent abilities consistent with projected experiment outcomes. Will continue to monitor for growth or change._

Vision waited for her to finish reading the report before he continued. "Hydra wasn't making weapons. They were trying to create more enhanced assets."

"What happened to them?" she found herself asking, not really wanting to know, her focus on the profile for the speedster they had encountered.

Quietly, carefully, he answered, "Most of the experiments were based on extremely dangerous procedures and drugs, including tainted terrigen crystals. Many of them didn't survive initial trials, and they only ever had one stable, successful case. They injected all of the other survivors with their latest attempt at a super soldier serum when it became clear they couldn't hold the base, but it put too much stress on their already compromised systems… There were no survivors."

"You mean… all of them…" she swallowed, suddenly fighting down the desire to march into the other room and toss the remaining Hydra agents around like ragdolls.

"Wanda, they will be punished." he assured her, a note of real urgency in his tone, "There is nowhere for them to go. They are unarmed, unconscious, and they will be rounded up and brought to justice shortly. However, if we do not leave soon, I am afraid _you_ may face a similar fate."

There was a long moment where she just stared at the lab reports, unable to drag her gaze from them, but, finally, she nodded. Visibly relieved, Vision closed out of the computer, and the two of them quickly exited the compound the same way they had come in.

They were just stepping out as several vans pulled up along the opposing side of the facility. Though it was nearing midday, and was brighter now than it had been when they first arrived, it was still mostly dark and overcast, and with all the commotion about, the two of them slipped quietly back into the streets of the city, each step taking them farther from the Hydra base and the men sent to lock it up.


	3. Chapter 3

They checked into a hotel on the far side of the city under Stark's name, and charged to his account. Vision closed the door that led to the hall behind him, as Wanda moved in a daze through the room.

She threw her coat over a chair and crashed into the bed, curling up into a tight ball.

All the anger she had felt earlier had bled away, leaving only echoes of regret, and grief.

Blue-grey eyes. Quick smiles. Blood on the ground.

Not her own.

No, never her own blood, only ever others'.

Their price for her mistakes.

She felt a weight settle on the edge of the bed, and a gentle hand laid upon her shoulder. She curled up even tighter, fingers clutching the bedspread as the nightmare played out endlessly in her mind. It was, in the end, the one place she could never escape.

"It's not your fault. You couldn't have saved him." he told her quietly.

A small sound of pain escaped her lips, and he pulled her closer, as if to physically shield her from the terrible images.

"You did everything you could." he whispered softly, "Wanda, listen to me, none of this is your fault."

And it wasn't. Not really. But she remembered the experiments she had gone through. That Pietro had gone through.

She remembered the nights when his heart would beat so fast she worried it would give out.

Remembered the nights it _did_ give out, and their handlers had taken him away and tried to restart it. Not out of mercy or concern, but because he was too valuable to lose.

She remembered the screams of the other subjects, until each of them, one by one, fell silent as the weeks passed. Maybe she couldn't have saved those ones, maybe she couldn't have saved _these_ ones, but she had survived the experiments.

She had survived when Pietro had not.

And she felt the effects of both keenly.

Vision continued to hold and comfort her, murmuring soft reassurances when she lost herself in a particularly painful experience, or when she mumbled her brother's name. He seemed to coax calm from her, however miniscule it might be, as he kept ceaselessly working to smother the memories and images with his words and presence.

The pain did not magically vanish, her guilt did not evaporate, but they did dull. Even her grief couldn't last forever. She was spent, utterly exhausted, the events taxing her body as well as her mind. Eventually, her tight muscles aching, shaking, she relaxed as best as she could.

Feeling her start to unwind at last, Vision gently lifted her up and placed her in a more natural sleeping position at the top of the bed, slipping a pillow under her head and tucking her under the covers. He started to pull away, and she felt a fresh wave of fear wash through her at the thought of being alone. _Don't leave_ , she silently begged, too tired to argue.

"Don't worry." he said, as if he had heard her, smiling faintly, and moved to the tiny stove in the kitchen. He pulled a kettle from one of the cupboards, filled it with water from the tap, and set it to boil on the stovetop. Moving back to the bed, he carefully climbed in beside her. "I'm not going anywhere." he promised, "I thought you might like some tea. I understand it is very relaxing."

She didn't really want tea, but she nodded, even that simple movement seeming unbelievably difficult. Her head felt so heavy, and when the motion stopped, she couldn't find the will to lift her head back to the pillow, resting her head against his chest instead. He lightly brushed the hair from her face, then took both her hands in his, his fingers tracing patterns across them in a way that was both oddly soothing, and wonderfully warm in the chilly mid-afternoon air.

Wanda had nearly dozed off when the kettle began to whistle shrilly. Startled, she jerked awake, and Vision hurriedly slipped out of bed to deal with it. He returned a minute later, apologetic, with a steaming mug in each hand. He handed her one of them, and helped prop her up with a few extra pillows before joining her.

"It's something called Sleepytime." he explained before she had to ask. "It's rather nice, I think." They each drank their tea, Wanda barely still awake enough to avoid spilling hers everywhere.

Eventually, Vision took the mostly empty cup from her still fingers and placed both hers and his on the end table. "You should try to sleep, Wanda." he suggested gently, his voice barely a hint above a whisper to avoid disturbing her. "Once you wake up, I can bring something back for lunch, or we could go out. But for now, just rest."

He helped her lie back down, putting the mound of pillows back in their proper positions. She moved closer to him, slipping her arms around him as she settled in, and breathed deeply. He wrapped his arms around her in turn, tucking his head to hers and listening to her slow, steady breathing.

Warm, full of Sleepytime tea, and exhausted from the day's exertions, Wanda clung to Vision, suppressing the latent images that threatened to return at any moment, and gradually drifted into a dreamless slumber—in itself a gift after the nightmares the day had held.

* * *

Nothing was ever truly easy, and few things Vision had found were simple.

Somehow, however, this was both.

No matter how difficult things in the world may get, no matter what the Accords forced him to do, he was determined to keep this.

He brushed a stray strand of hair from Wanda's face, the thought ever more firmly entrenched in his mind with every second he spent by her side.

Eventually, Vision himself was lulled into a light rest by the soft sounds of her breathing and the steady beat of her heart against him. The last thought he had before his eyes closed was to wonder whether she felt the same way he did.

The way she pulled him closer even in sleep told him she did.


End file.
